


By Moonlight

by The_Lake_King



Series: 2021 Valentine's Prompts [10]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Ambiguity, Feelings, Internalized Homophobia, Love Confessions, M/M, Sexual Experimentation, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-15 22:01:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29321325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Lake_King/pseuds/The_Lake_King
Summary: Prompt 10. "You should probably kiss me now."Jimmy comes to a seemingly abrupt decision to "try it."
Relationships: Thomas Barrow/Jimmy Kent
Series: 2021 Valentine's Prompts [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2137182
Comments: 8
Kudos: 45
Collections: Well I love you: Valentines for Thomas Barrow





	By Moonlight

Jimmy had been looking at him all day. Not in the usual way, with joking smiles and bright eyes that said _are you seeing this?_ Jimmy kept looking at him like a man might size up a set of weights. Tension crackled between them. It wasn’t bad, per se, not like that time after the Incident that still kept Thomas up at night. But it wasn’t good, either. It made him itch, and started up the little voice in the back of his skull that told him he was heading for a fall. Even well into a time of easy friendship between them, Thomas still wondered if he was keeping himself under enough control. It was the constant litany of his life: put on the mask, tame the wild thing, give them a new monster to fear, pretend, pretend, pretend. He went over it in his mind, tracing the shape as he got ready for bed. It was fine. Everything was fine.

Sleep was reluctant. He tried to focus on the whiteness of the ceiling and pretend he was in some other room, some other place. Lying in a plush bed in a Spanish villa with a faceless man. On the ground, alone in a field, listening to the wind. On a magician’s table, about to be sawed in half. He heard the drag of the saw. The magician bent over him, blond hair flopping on his forehead.

“Thomas? Wake up.”

He opened his eyes to find Jimmy perched on his bed in the moonlight. A chair was wedged under the doorknob.

“You were having a bad dream,” Jimmy whispered, rubbing tiny circles into his chest. The footman’s fingers traveled up and brushed the hair that escaped his pyjama shirt.

“Hm. M’not anymore.” Thomas purred. He was having a much better one now. He felt a little guilty for having such dreams about his friend, but it wasn’t hurting anyone, was it?

Jimmy smiled, a little. It was a tentative, frightened thing that wasn’t usual at all. He bit his lip. It took Thomas a moment to realize that the hand on his chest was cold and trembling, and that the warm haze he had felt a moment ago was the last vestiges of sleep leaving him. He bolted upright.

“I’m sorry, Jimmy I…I were half-asleep an’ dreamin’. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Jimmy snapped. He pushed Thomas back down on the bed, curling his fingers in the neck of the other man’s pyjama shirt.

“Uh—”

“I want to try it.” Jimmy squared his shoulders and looked down his nose, as if spoiling for a fight.

Thomas stared. Desperate fool he might be, but he’d be damned if Jimmy didn’t have a way of saying and doing things that set fire to his logic. “Try what?” he choked.

“You know what. I want to try it. With you.” Jimmy swallowed, nerves peeking through his façade. “Y’know. If you want.”

Some bastard had clamped Thomas’ larynx shut and he didn’t appreciate it. He nodded. _Yes, I want. I want everything._ God, perhaps he _was_ dreaming.

“Right. Good. So, you should probably kiss me now.” Jimmy sat there with his lips slightly puckered and his eyes wide. It was so adorable, so juvenile that Thomas almost laughed. He squashed the impulse. Assuming this was real, which he doubted severely, he was on very thin ice. He had to do this right. 

He reached out and cupped Jimmy’s jaw to guide him. He kept it gentle, a feather-light touch that the other man could pull away from any time he chose. But Jimmy didn’t pull away. He succumbed to the soft pressure with a look that an optimist might have termed relief. Thomas didn’t name it. He did, however, name the feeling of pillow-soft lips pressing against his own: bliss. It was hesitant at first, but Jimmy’s reluctance felt…manageable. Like that first sip of hot tea, wanting to drink but wary of the burn. Thomas went slowly, sip by sip, until Jimmy opened his mouth with a moan. He tasted like mint. Their arms snaked around each other’s bodies, tangling like vines until Jimmy was sat in his lap, their torsos glued together. He could feel the footman’s erection, pressing hot against his belly. The parts of himself that had long been boxed up and put away howled to be let out. 

It was Jimmy who broke the kiss, and Thomas panicked for a moment until Jimmy started undoing his buttons. The footman stared at his bare chest with all the fascination he might apply to an exotic illustration or new sheet music, raking his fingers through dark hair.

“You’re a man.”

“Yes,” said Thomas carefully. He was quite certain now that this was real, and it made his heart pound in his ears. Being real meant that things could go terribly wrong.

“Is this what it’s supposed to feel like?” Jimmy asked in a small voice. He slid his hands down Thomas’ ribs and gently squeezed at the extra flesh around his middle.

“I mean, I’ve been at the biscuits a bit.” He could feel a blush spreading down his chest in that awful blotchy way that Phillip hated. It had never occurred to him that _that_ might be the sticking point in all this, but he would give up dessert for the rest of his life if he could have Jimmy instead.

“Not that, I like that,” Jimmy murmured, brow furrowed. “’S you. I mean is this what…is this what touchin’ someone’s supposed to feel like? Like when they go on about breasts an’ that an’ I never…”

“Understood what all the fuss was about?” Thomas prodded gently.

Jimmy nodded, staring through Thomas to something else for a long moment, still kneading at the other man’s hips. A cacophony of emotions played across his ever-mobile face, from familiar frustration and worry to darker, more complex flickerings that Thomas couldn’t name. The temptation to cradle his darling boy close, to shower him with love until all his hurts and misgivings smoothed out into warm comfort was overwhelming, but Thomas forced himself to be still.

“’M bloody awful,” Jimmy whispered at length.

“Darling _no_. Listen, all the things you’ve heard, it’s not true, Jimmy. We’re not—”

“You don’t understand. ’S not just you, ’s not both…It’s men,” he said, eyes glistening in the moonlight. “It’s always been men an’ I _knew_ , deep down, an’ I still did that to you.”

“We all do mad things when we’re scared,” Thomas said softly, holding up his naked left hand. “That was then. Right now, you’ve made me the happiest man alive. Be happy with me?”

Jimmy kissed and caressed the scarred palm, rubbing his face against it like a cat. Warmth pooled in Thomas’ chest. No one else knew this Jimmy, the one who could be sweet and conscientious, who held pain and feelings that ran so much deeper than playing with kitchen maids. He had been honoured to know this version on any terms, but having him here, with him, even if they went no further, was something he had never dared to hope for. Thomas told him so as the footman trailed kisses up his arm.

“I think I want to go further,” Jimmy whispered at his neck. “But I don’t know…I mean, I _do_ but…”

“We never have to do _that_ if you don’t want to. Plenty of men don’t.” It was not lost on him that the line of Jimmy’s shoulders sagged in relief, though he tried to pass it off as a smooth motion to press their bodies closer. “How would you like it,” Thomas asked, kissing the pads of each of Jimmy’s fingers, “if I gave you my mouth?” Jimmy stared at him uncomprehendingly for a moment until Thomas sucked his index finger.

“Isn’t that,” Jimmy swallowed, “degrading?” The way he said it, punched out and gravelly while staring at Thomas with wide eyes kicked up his confidence. _Still got it._ It had been so long that Thomas had half-forgotten he was _good_ at this. He could be good at it for Jimmy. He could suspend disbelief for a little while and simply exist in this beautiful, impossible moment.

He pulled off Jimmy’s finger with a wet pop. “I like doing it,” he said softly, leaving open-mouthed kisses down his throat. “Bein’ so close, givin’ pleasure.” Jimmy moaned and grabbed onto his shoulders. “I want to make you feel good.”

“Yes,” Jimmy gasped. Thomas made short work of tearing off his pyjamas and laying him down on his back. Jimmy submitted to it, clinging to him like he might fly off. Thomas worried at every moment that his partner might bolt, but he seemed…entranced. The idea that Thomas could have such an effect on this beautiful boy made him want to weep. Did Jimmy truly not know that he had the under-butler wrapped around his little finger?

He would know it soon enough. Thomas wrapped his hand around Jimmy’s flushed cock, barely containing his glee when Jimmy bit down on his own hand hard enough to leave marks. “You need somethin’ better to bite if you’re gonna do that,” he whispered. “Wouldn’t want to bruise your lovely hands.” He wasn’t sure what he’d had in mind, but Jimmy’s hand darted to the leather glove on the nightstand. _Fuck._ Thomas nodded at him, staring unashamedly as best he could in the dark. Jimmy shoved it between his teeth, eyes fluttering shut for a moment as if he were savouring a delicacy. Thomas had to press down on his own groin to keep this from ending all too quickly. No matter what happened, he was going to get up tomorrow and wear something that had been in Jimmy’s mouth. That Jimmy had clearly thought about, had _wanted_ in his mouth.

“You’re so beautiful,” Thomas whispered, running his hands over Jimmy’s flat stomach and down to his thighs. Even here, even in the distorting moonlight, he could tell that the skin beneath his fingers was golden. Smooth and unblemished like a statue. He pressed those perfect hips to the mattress and licked him from root to tip. It was surreal. He had no idea what time it was, or what had prompted this about-face. But here was Jimmy fucking Kent, lying on his bed, writhing and gripping his hair as Thomas took him all the way in.

Thomas relished the smell, the taste, the muffled cries that told him he was providing ecstasy. He could finish like this, he was convinced, rutting against the bunched-up quilt and sucking Jimmy’s cock. The footman stared at him with wide, liquid eyes, his breath stuttering around the leather, faster and faster. Thomas didn’t let up, sucking and licking and swirling his tongue. He kept his eyes locked on Jimmy’s as his lover came with a muffled groan that sounded tantalizingly like Thomas’ name, fingers tangled almost painfully in his hair. 

Thomas stayed down, licking up stray drops and kissing Jimmy’s thighs as he frantically tugged at himself, only getting a few strokes in before his own orgasm washed over him, violent and all-consuming. The world was changed because he knew what it felt like to lie gasping, with his cheek pressed against Jimmy's naked thigh and salt on his tongue. The man who had crawled into a cold bed with heavy thoughts a few hours ago was dead. Everything was made new now, and for Thomas there was only this. 

Jimmy pulled him up and they snuggled under the covers, wrapped in each other’s arms. Everything was warm and golden between them. It didn't matter that the bed was hardly big enough for one grown man, let alone two. Tomorrow would mean going back to ordinary things, but that was tomorrow. The quilt would need seeing to, but that was a problem for future-Thomas.

“That was…fuck.” Jimmy kissed him, wrinkling his nose at the taste of himself but not pulling away.

“Mm, it was,” Thomas purred. He felt loose, sated and cozy, like the cat that got the cream. If this was a dream, he never wanted to wake up. If it was real, he would never have need of dreams again.

“I can’t believe we’ve gone all this time without doin’ that,” Jimmy said through a yawn, cringing almost apologetically as soon as the words left him. Then, softly, tentatively: “Can I stay?”

“Yes. My alarm’s set early. You’ll be fine.”

Jimmy mumbled his assent into Thomas’ neck, already being dragged under by sleep.

“Goodnight,” Thomas whispered.

“G’night. Love you.”

Tears pricked in his eyes. He knew he wouldn’t hear it in the morning. It was only that Jimmy was sleepy and fucked-out, loose in the arms of the night. But he’d be damned if he wasn’t going to hold onto those words until he died.

“I love you too.”


End file.
